Friday, April 26, 2013

My Bleeding Heart

Oh the dangers of gardening. I can officially say that I have bled for this farm, and it was worth it. To be honest, it's not my only war wound of the day, and it's not nearly as bad as it looks. I managed to hit myself in the head and the leg with a fencepost pounder, sliced one leg with chicken wire, and the other leg with field fencing. Living in the country is dangerous! Especially for a clumsy person like me.

Injuries aside, today was a BEAUTIFUL day. I would even call it the PERFECT day for working outside. It was sunny, in the high 60's and there was a slight breeze. I was able to pound in fence u-posts and dig in the dirt without breaking to much of a sweat. It was so nice I spent about 5 hours outside getting things done, building the fence for the chicken enclosure, planting bulbs, transplanting rhubarb, and flattening a mound of dirt so I could plant strawberries. I really hope I didn't wait to long to plant the bulbs and strawberries! I'm sure the cold days aren't behind us, but all this sunshine has me nervous that I'm not at all prepared for the growing season.

There is a patch of rhubarb along our west fence line by the pump house that was flourishing when we viewed the house last spring, but was long gone by the time we moved in in July. I am so excited to get to use rhubarb this year! About a month ago it started to sprout and I was jumping for joy- until I realized that the dogs were rooting around and pooping all around it! Boo! That had to be remedied, and fast.

I decided to use some 3 foot field fencing to create cages over it and it worked really well. I was even able to use some pine shavings from the chick coop around the plants to help keep down the weeds. I decided that we couldn't just leave the rhubarb all alone, so when I bought a package of strawberry plants that do well in colder climates I decided to create a mini spring garden.

Today I spend the day shoveling and leveling a mound of dirt that was next to the rhubarb. I couldn't get over how amazing the soil is! It's rich and dark and full of worms. It's going to grow some serious fruits and veggies for us this year. I even uncovered more rhubarb that was buried to deep in the mound to reach the surface. I was able to transplant it closer to the other rhubarb. We are going to have some serious baking and canning to do. It took an hour or so, but I finally got it all leveled, planted, straw around everything to keep the weeds down, and protected in cages (where I got that lovely cut on my leg). I can't wait for strawberries! Only 2 more months (I hope)....